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<blockquote data-quote="WalterKovacs" data-source="post: 4548800" data-attributes="member: 63763">One problem with challenging the player not the stats.&nbsp;Do you get the players to move your coach to prove if their character can succeed on their strength check? Have them race, or hold their breath, etc. Mixing things up is good, but ultimately a person isn't &quot;punished&quot; for not having his physical stats anywhere near the character's stats ... but not letting someone with tons of charisma and training in diplomacy be able to talk his way out of a sitution because the person playing them is shy [and, I can definitely see a motivation for a shy person to play someone that is completely unlike them] is punishing a player for playing against type.&nbsp;In general, challenging the players keep them engaged. However, if you don't challenge the character's stats/skills ... you make the choices for stats and skills matter a bit more in the long run. People have complained about how INT can be an easy dump stat ... without the skills it gets worse. Part of this is mostly making sure the players know what to expect going in. It's not just &quot;players only train in combat relative skills&quot; abuse ... it's that, as a player, I would be annoyed to find out I made choices that my DM has rendered moot. Like someone that has taken a number of feats to improve their opportunity attacks finding out that the DM avoids OAs like the plague. Or in earlier editions, bringing a Rogue into a game and finding it's an undead heavy campaign.&nbsp;Ultimately though, the important thing is that DM's and players know each others play styles, especially before hand. Most conflict or problems &quot;with the game&quot; come out of players and DMs having different play styles and not having made it clear ahead of time. Retraining is nice ... as it lets a player change something that isn't useful given how the group functions.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="WalterKovacs, post: 4548800, member: 63763"] One problem with challenging the player not the stats. Do you get the players to move your coach to prove if their character can succeed on their strength check? Have them race, or hold their breath, etc. Mixing things up is good, but ultimately a person isn't "punished" for not having his physical stats anywhere near the character's stats ... but not letting someone with tons of charisma and training in diplomacy be able to talk his way out of a sitution because the person playing them is shy [and, I can definitely see a motivation for a shy person to play someone that is completely unlike them] is punishing a player for playing against type. In general, challenging the players keep them engaged. However, if you don't challenge the character's stats/skills ... you make the choices for stats and skills matter a bit more in the long run. People have complained about how INT can be an easy dump stat ... without the skills it gets worse. Part of this is mostly making sure the players know what to expect going in. It's not just "players only train in combat relative skills" abuse ... it's that, as a player, I would be annoyed to find out I made choices that my DM has rendered moot. Like someone that has taken a number of feats to improve their opportunity attacks finding out that the DM avoids OAs like the plague. Or in earlier editions, bringing a Rogue into a game and finding it's an undead heavy campaign. Ultimately though, the important thing is that DM's and players know each others play styles, especially before hand. Most conflict or problems "with the game" come out of players and DMs having different play styles and not having made it clear ahead of time. Retraining is nice ... as it lets a player change something that isn't useful given how the group functions. [/QUOTE]

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